NGP GOES INTERNATIONAL

WOOTTEN BASSETT, England — National Golf Properties has acquired Wootten Bassett Golf Club near Swindon. The price was $1,875 million. This is NGP's fourth acquisition since its initial public offering in August, and its first international investment.

GPA RECRUITS SEVERAL COURSES

in Hanover, Pa.; Lau-rel Creek Golf Club in Moorestown, N.J.; several Florida golf clubs represented by the law firm of Cummings & Lockwood in Naples and Collier counties; and Hiland Park Golf Club in Queensbury, N.Y. It will also perform a feasibility analy-sis and valuation services for a proposed municipal course in West Manheim Township in York County, Pa.

CHANTILLY HIRES MARTTY

FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Martty Golf Man-agement has signed a consulting agree-ment to oversee the marketing and op-erations of Chantilly Manor Country Club in Rising Sun, Md. Chantilly Manor in-cludes an 18-hole course, clubhouse, ban-quet hall, restaurant, swimming pool and tennis courts.

NCGA TABS GOLF VALUATION

Golf Valuation Consultants of Madi-son, Wis., has been selected by the North-ern California Golf Association to appraise its Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach, Calif., and proposed Poppy Ridge Golf Course in Livermore, Calif. The ap-praisals will be used to help secure fi-nancing for 27-hole, Rees Jones-designed Poppy Ridge.

ROBERTS JOINS ST. ANDREWS

LAWRENCE, Kansas — Former Golf Course Superintendents Association of America President William Roberts has joined several other past GCSAA staffers at St. Andrews Corp. Inc. Roberts joined the firm Feb. 1 as vice president. He will serve as a resource for agronomic and golf course operations consulting. A graduate of Penn State's turfgrass man-agement program, Roberts has 18 years experience in the golf industry. He will maintain a Michigan office at 1652 Severn Rd., Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich. 48236; (313) 884-8207.

Cole resigns as Kiawah Island golf director B y P E T E R B L A I S

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Kiawah Island Golf and Tennis Director Chris Cole re-signed last month after five years at the coastal resort and 17 years with former owner Landmark Land Co.

"I had a ball on the front nine of my career," said Cole, 44. "I want to pick where I play and with whom on the back nine/'

Cole's resignation comes on the heels of Landmark's bankruptcy sale of Kiawah to AMF Inc. AMF brought in a new man-agement team, but had hoped Cole would stay to run the golf and tennis operations.

"We were very surprised about Chris'

leaving," said Beverly W. Armstrong, vice chairman of Virginia Investment Trust, AMF's parent company. "We thought he had done an excellent job. But he said he simply wanted to do something different."

Cole said he had some minor differences with the new management regarding the long-term business philosophy at Kiawah. But, he added, that was not the reason he left. He described the breakup as amicable and wished the new management "the best of luck."

Cole was Landmark's first golf profes-sional, joining the Oak Tree Country Club staff in Edmond, Okla., in 1976. He re-

GolfCorp becoming big player in public market ClubCorp connection proves mutually beneficial

B y P E T E R B L A I S

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — GolfCorp's purchase of the Royal Golf Course at Queen's Harbor Yacht & Country Club demon-strates the flexibility its parent company — Club Corporation International — possesses now that it operates in the private, public and resort markets.

The private course was not doing well financially when GolfCorp, CCIs public course arm, purchased the 18-hole layout in late November. The company retained access to the best tee times for members while opening the course to public play.

"We're promoting it as a limited-access facility," explained Executive Vice President Beryl Artz. "We're supplementing the bottom line with additional rounds of golf until we have enough members to make it strictly private again.

"We hope that happens in five or six years. Then we'll turn it over to our private subsidiary, ClubCorp. That's the second of the four acquisitions [Oakmont Country Club near Dallas was the first] we made last year that we plan to keep public for several years then turn over to ClubCorp."

January marked the beginning of GolfCorp's ambitious three-year, 6-8-10 acquisition program. The Dallas-based company plans to buy six courses in 1994, eight in 1995 and 10 in 1996. That will nearly double the 32 golf properties the company currently owns or operates.

Continued on page 49

World Woods used a mass discount program to attract business.

Marketing Idea of the Month

Mass discounting program puts Fla. course on map B y P E T E R B L A I S

Picture, if you will, a small town midway between Tampa and Orlando. As the early-morning sun rises, three buses pull into a golf course parking lot and disgorge 120 bag-toting bargain seekers intent on play-ing no less than 48 holes before half-past dark. The price — a paltry $50 per head. You've just entered that shady area between necessary promotion and giving away the store. You've entered — The WORLD WOODS ZONE.

Sound nightmare-ish? At times, it did to World Woods Golf

Course General Manager Stan Cooke, the man who came up with a massive group discounting plan to promote this Tom Fazio-designed facility located in isolated Homosassa, Fla.

"But it worked," Cooke said one late-Continued on page 48

GolfCorp recently took over management of Royal GC at Queens Harbor.

Golf Property Analysts of Harrisburg, Pa., has been selected to perform ap-praisal and/or analysis services for sev-eral clubs including South Hills Golf Club

Laurence Hirsh, GPA president

mained there 10 years, rising to presi-dent of Oak Tree, before a three-year stint as project direc-tor at Palm Beach Polo & Country Club in West Palm

„ . ~ , Beach, Fla. Chris Cole _ . . t Cole was actively involved in the development of Kiawah's Ocean Course and was general chairman of the 1991 Ryder Cup held there.

"I'm not in a big hurry to find a new position. I'm leaving my options open. But I want to stay involved in golf," Cole said.

Armstrong said the search for Cole's successor at Kiawah had not begun.

Oscar Miles, CGCS, overlooks the 6th hole at the Merit Club, Libertyville, Illinois.

PennLinks Greens. Penneagle Fairways. Penncross Tees. The 'Perm Pals' Are Picture Perfect At The Merit Club.

Superintendent Oscar Miles, with Club President Ed Oldfield's affirmation, specified all the grass-ing of this Robert M. Lohmann designed club. With a clean canvas and open palette, Oscar began with PennLinks greens, Penneagle fairways and Penncross tees, framing them with bluegrass/ fine fescue/wildflower and prairiegrass roughs. You couldn't paint a more attractive picture.

Oscar chose PennLinks greens for its rapid establishment, marvelous root system, a crown and stolons that take topdressing, upright, grainless qualities and good, consistent color... the best putting surface available.

He selected Penncross for tees because they recover from divot scars more quickly.

And the Penneagle fairways? Oscar chose Penneagle for its upright growth, reduced thatch development, low nitrogen requirement and good drought and dollar spot resistance. He seeded at 80 lbs. per acre for immediate turf development and

Tee-2-Green Corp. Post Office Box 250 Hubbard, OR 97032 800-547-0255 503-651-2130 FAX 503-651-2351

erosion control. The fairways were playable in 8 weeks. Oscar's crew usually mows fairways in the evening and leaves the clippings; recycling nutrients while reducing removal and fertilizer costs.

Oscar articulates it best: "The unique coloring of the Tenn Pals' contrasts beautifully with the grassing around them, defining the target areas. And with the dew on the bents early in the morning, they're a marvelous work of art."

GolfCorp course property list continues to grow Following is a listing of GolfCorp properties. Airways Municipal Golf Course (GC), Fresno,

Calif.; Bellflower Golf & Tennis, Bellflower, Ca-lif.; Upland Hills CC, Upland, Calif.; Diamond Bar GC, Diamond Bar, Calif.; Eagle Crest GC, Escondido, Calif.; Eureka (Calif.) Municipal GC; Golden Era GC, Gilman Hot Springs, Calif.; Harding Park GC and Lincoln Park GC, San Francisco; Paradise Valley and Rancho Solano GC, Fairfield, Calif.

Three Ridges GC, Knoxville, Tenn.; Family Golf Center, Safety Harbor, Fla.; Sabal Trace GC, North Port, Fla.; Tayman Park GC, Healdsburg, Fla.; The Country Club at Silver Springs Shores,

Ocala, Fla.; Queens Harbor Yacht & CC, Jack-sonville, Fla.

John F. Byrne Municipal GC, Juniata Munici-pal GC, Cobbs Creek GC, F.D. Roosevelt Munici-pal GC, Walnut Lane Municipal GC and GolfCorp Sports Center, Philadelphia; Middletown Coun-try Club (CC), Langhorne, Pa.; Ed "Porky" Oliver GC, Wilmington, Del.

Clear Creek GC and Clear Lake GC, both in Houston; Forest Creek GC, Round Rock, Texas; Kingwood Cove GC, Kingwood, Texas; Oakmont CC, Corinth, Texas; Family Golf Center, Arlington, Texas; Plantation Resort GC, Frisco, Texas.

GolfCorp Continued from page 45

"We're not interested in getting into a bidding war for properties," said Artz, noting CCI has traditionally avoided paying exhorbitant prices for highly visible properties.

"We know what a property is worth. In the 1980s ClubCorp went two or three years without making any acquisitions. High-priced Japanese investments were simply making prices unrealistic."

What sort of golf facilities will GolfCorp be seeking?

Financial viability is the first concern, Artz said. The com-pany also prefers metropolitan Sunbelt areas where it already has or could quickly establish a cluster arrangement that would allow the sharing of manage-ment expertise and expensive equipment across courses.

"When we buy a course, we are in it for the long term. So we want to see potential for future growth in rounds, too," Artz said.

Like parent CCI, GolfCorp will shy away from building courses.

"We've consulted with many companies on building," Artz said. "But finding [traditional] funding to build a new course is virtually impossible. Banks view commercial investments on a cash-flow basis. Banks are rarely willing to loan money based on projections that a project should make money.

"We see the development business picking up. It makes sense for developers to include golf courses because it adds value to the rest of their property. More towns will use their bonding capacity to construct courses. That will present opportunities for us."

In fact, GolfCorp traces its roots back to the municipal market.

Jeff Silverstein and Bob Husband founded California-based Silband Sports Corp. in 1979. ClubCorp purchased 80 percent of Silband in 1986, Artz said. Until then, Silband primarily held service contracts with municipal layouts, operat-ing the driving range, pro shop or some other facet of the facility, but never the entire operation, Artz said.

Shortly after merging with ClubCorp, CCA/Silband acquired is first master lease arrangement (giving it control of the entire operation) at Diamond Bar (Calif.) Golf Course.

The firm continued to lease municipal and privately owned facilities and acquire high-end courses.

Renamed GolfCorp when ClubCorp purchased 100 percent of the firm in 1992, it has grown to the point where it now calls itself the nation's second largest operator of daily-

fee courses. Agronomically, GolfCorp

takes its lead from CCA, Artz said. Vice President Dave Johnson oversees course maintenance at all GolfCorp facilities. He joined CCA in 1983, serving as regional superintendent and East Coast director of agronomy before moving to GolfCorp.

A PGA golf professional/ manager heads up most GolfCorp facilities.

The company has "Class A" superintendents at all but a handful of facilities and tries to promote from within, Artz said.